NEW YORK — President Barack Obama praised the new Sept. 11 museum Thursday as “a sacred place of healing and of hope” that captures both the story and the spirit of heroism and helpfulness that followed the attacks.

“It’s an honor to join in your memories, to recall and to reflect, but above all to reaffirm the true spirit of 9/11 — love, compassion, sacrifice — and to enshrine it forever in the heart of our nation,” he told an audience of victims’ relatives, survivors, rescuers and recovery workers at the ground zero museum’s dedication ceremony.

“Like the great wall and bedrock that embrace us today, nothing can ever break us. Nothing can change who we are as Americans.”